Hotel Indigo Chester: An Opulent Stay with Charm and Comfort

Sunday at Milan mode week was the setting of two very different stories. First up was Marni, which invented its name for cerebral clothes loved by the art crowd, with a womenswear launch from new designer Francesco Risso.

And then Dolce & Gabbana, a docket that, increasingly, loves a catwalk stunt to generate patter around its leopard print and lace-fuelled glamour. This loiter again and again that came through casting influencers – Instagram celebrates, children of celebrities, even magazine editors – as models. The differ between the two shows could not have been more bizarre.

Following the departure of Marni’s founder and creative director, Consuelo Castiglioni, from the New Zealand in October last year, Francesco Risso, 33, an ex-Prada inventor, took over as creative director. This Sunday morning in Milan was his original womenswear show.

The show paid homage to Castiglioni’s legacy and subtly set out that this was Risso’s Marni 2.0, the premier designed by a man. The first pieces, like a skirt suit and disguise with cocoon-like volume, felt typical, as did the “ugly” sandals with bulbous heels and too-long individuals, and the statement earrings. Then there were the Risso details – brocade dresses with bra tops over them fatigued with sunglasses and mid-calf boots, a collage of ideas with a select of club kid feel.

That was also there in oversized hats, Big Bird-worthy pastel-coloured linty coats, and vinyl jackets. Seventies prints, sickly wonderful colours and nipped in trouser suits, meanwhile, revealed the favour of the designer’s previous employer. It felt like a collection lay out to plant the seeds of something to grow rather than spine-tingling up what came before and starting again.

Backstage, Risso – a lank puppyish presence with a mop of curly hair, wearing a superior Western shirt – showed his millennial credentials. He said he was “wonderful excited” by his new role, and explained, slightly gnomically, that the solicitation was called be1ngs to include different identities. “The one is in place of the ‘i’ so singularity and plurality are equally high-level in this collection,” he explained.

He also paid tribute to Castiglioni. “Consuelo and the function she has done is so important to me,” he said. “She was so amazing in freeing stereotyped plan of a woman or a man. That is something that I really care more and I want to fight for.”

Consuelo Castiglioni set Marni with her husband, Gianni, in 1994. It has been insinuated that the Castiglionis’ departure could have been down to a fussy relationship with Only The Brave. Renzo Rosso’s convention, which also owns Rosso’s Diesel and Maison Margiela, purchase 60% of Marni in 2012. Marni’s revenues grew 15.4% in 2015, to £127m. The callers has 60 stores around the world.

Dolce & Gabbana started their fair like a stadium concert, with screens all around glare up the names of those about to walk on the catwalk. Models take in Oliver Cheshire and Pixie Lott, Alice and Charlotte Dellal, and Jo Ellison, work editor of the Financial Times who is touted as a possible next Last word editor. She walked to smiles from the British press, incorporating Alexandra Shulman, who sat in the front row.

In a show that was more with reference to entertainment than selling clothes, included were also dogs, babes and small children. Austin Mahone, the 20-year-old singer with 10 million fans on Instagram soundtracked everything with a live performance. It tested irresistible to those in the front row. Even Anna Wintour, mostly cross-armed, was smiling and clearly enjoying the spectacle.

It finished with waiters in pageboy outfits appearing with trays of champagne and most audience colleagues leaving the venue struggling to take everything in. In the world of Dolce & Gabbaba – different from Marni – there is no such thing as OTT.

This was the first womenswear gathering from Dolce & Gabbana since Melania Trump donned one of their dresses in January. Stefano Gabbana’s praise of the new anything else lady on social media prompted an outcry from buffs, with some suggesting they would be boycotting the marque.